Here was a mild shock: as f.a.n.n.y Stirling descended the stairs, her hand gripping the banister to guide her, she saw her son Warren standing in the hall just outside Maynard"s study, staring at the visitor just inside. How does he know of her? So quickly? f.a.n.n.y felt a stab of maternal panic. When Warren glanced up at her, his expression showed embarra.s.sment, yet excitement. "Who is she, Mother?" he asked in an undertone. f.a.n.n.y said, frowning, "This is not your concern, Warren. This has nothing to do with you." Her brother-in-law Tyler approached, exchanged a glance with f.a.n.n.y-how quickly the two understood each other-and slipped into the room without a word to Warren. "But, Mother-" the boy protested, as f.a.n.n.y said, with more harshness than she intended, "She is no one we know, or wish to know," and Warren said, "Then why is she here?-I saw her approach the house, she looks so frightened," and f.a.n.n.y said, her voice rising with a threat of hysteria, which never failed to intimidate the men of the family, "Warren, go away. I forbid you, in your late father"s name, to speculate on matters that do not concern you."
A seamstress"s a.s.sistant. Seventeen years of age. Who had come to Contracoeur to work the previous year, and had taken lodgings with an elderly relative of her family, across town in East Contracoeur-"The far side of the Chautauqua & Buffalo tracks."
Their initial interview lasted well into the afternoon. The three of them shut away in Maynard"s rosewood-panelled study, the shutters partly shut against a too-bright, too-intrusive spring sunshine that hurt f.a.n.n.y Stirling"s swollen eyes. Within minutes the situation became clear, in its horror, to the adults; the worst part of it being that the naive young girl was no less dangerous to the Stirling household and to Maynard"s unblemished reputation for being, as it so painfully appeared, wholly innocent.
Self-conscious, shrinking, out of her element, as out of her social cla.s.s, in trying to converse with these imposing adults, Miss Mina Raumlicht seemed incapable of comprehending, at first, that Mr. Stirling had "pa.s.sed away"-she seemed in fact not to hear, staring, blinking, smiling with a peculiar intensity at Tyler, who was obliged to repeat his words. As f.a.n.n.y, in a haze of migraine and despair, tried to harden her heart against the intruder, a shy little wren of a country girl for whom, in other circ.u.mstances, f.a.n.n.y would have felt Christian compa.s.sion. (For years, f.a.n.n.y Stirling and certain of her women friends had been active, to a degree, in the founding and funding of the Presbyterian Home for Unwed Mothers in Contracoeur.) Mina Raumlicht had large deep-set bluish-gray eyes, threaded with blood and ringed with fatigue; there was a hectic flush to her cheeks, a symptom of fever-or worse; her small, doll-like features were pinched and sickly. Her hair was a fair silvery brown neatly plaited and worn about her head like a crown. Her cloak was well worn, over-large for her slender figure; made of some cheap velveteen material of a magenta hue so dark as to appear black, neatly hemmed, but beginning to fray. Beneath it, the girl wore a simple dark cotton frock with a square yoke, tight sleeves and a wristfrill that fell despondently to her somewhat raw-looking knuckles. The skirt was full and stiff and rustled unpleasantly, like m.u.f.fled whispers; the jacket, drooping in the shoulders, tied rather than b.u.t.toned across the front. Sensing how ill-dressed she must appear in the eyes of a rich Greenley Square matron, Miss Raumlicht sat hunched in her chair, arms loosely folded across her waist, and fingers tightly clasped. It struck f.a.n.n.y Stirling"s eye that the girl did not wear gloves; her fingers were without rings, and her nails were painfully short as if bitten. As once I bit my own nails, in terror of the male mystery that surrounds.
At last, Mina Raumlicht seemed to comprehend that Mr. Stirling, to whom she"d recently written, and whom she now so daringly, desperately sought, was dead. "But-how could G.o.d allow it?" she whispered. "At such a time-?"
With a warning glance at his sister-in-law, Tyler said, in a cooler voice than he might have wished, "I"m afraid, Miss Raumlicht, that G.o.d allows many things in His world, and in His time."
There was a silence. At a near distance, the somber yet surpa.s.singly beautiful bells of St. Mary Magdalen"s Church began to toll the hour. As in a sick, sliding dissolve, as if on the verge of illness, f.a.n.n.y Stirling was weeping unrestrainedly, and now Mina Raumlicht began to weep. The one haggard with grief and the other, so many years younger, with a child"s gasping sobs, her beautiful eyes spilling with tears that glinted like acid and her hard little knuckles jammed against her mouth.
Tyler moved to comfort the women, with an air of both gallantry and vexation. How quickly a man tires of female weakness, especially female grief for another man! As he rose from his chair, the little seamstress"s a.s.sistant seemed to shrink from him, as if fearing a blow; her eyes rolled upward in their sockets, her skin drained deathly white; she moaned, "Oh!-help me!" and fainted, falling heavily to the carpet before either of the Stirlings could prevent her, revealing, to their horrified eyes, the small but unmistakably rounded, swollen belly inside the shapeless clothing.
THE MORE GROTESQUE for being as f.a.n.n.y Stirling would recall for the remainder of her unhappy life so disproportionate to the child"s body, only a fiend would have inflicted it upon her.
OF COURSE THEY dared not summon a physician, or even one of the household servants, for fear of scandal.
Though f.a.n.n.y Stirling, loosening the girl"s tight bodice with trembling fingers, and holding a small vial of spirits of ammonia beneath the girl"s nose, worried aloud-"G.o.d help us if she dies!"
Tyler said, half-angrily, his lower jaw trembling, "This sort of female doesn"t die for a trifle, I"m sure."
Awkwardly, f.a.n.n.y and Tyler carried the stricken girl to a sofa where by slow degrees she revived, though it was nearly an hour before she came sufficiently to her senses to recognize her surroundings and to recall who the Stirlings were, and why she had come. With numbed lips she whispered she was sorry, so sorry, so frightened, she knew she must leave but she had nowhere to go, how could she return home to Innisfail, or even to her aunt"s house, she had hidden her condition from her aunt but could not hide it much longer, Maynard had promised her he would a.s.sist her, what a good man Maynard was, how wicked of G.o.d to have taken him away!-so that f.a.n.n.y was obliged to interrupt, with the alarmed caution with which she might have spoken to one of her own children, "My dear, no!-never say such things. We must believe that G.o.d is good."
"But G.o.d is not good," Mina Raumlicht wept, writhing on the horsehair sofa, her plaited hair coming undone, her small, distended body exuding a damp disagreeable heat. "-G.o.d has hurt us all, so cruelly."
Tyler went to fetch a gla.s.s of brandy for the girl, but she lapsed into a sudden sleep, or trance; her reddened eyes only partly closed; her mouth, that looked hurt, slack as an infant"s. The Stirlings stood over her, uncertain what to do. Tyler, who knew far more of the world"s ways than did his sister-in-law, was yet stymied; in his soul, deeply shocked, and angered, by his late brother"s behavior-what a hypocrite, that Presbyterian deacon! How incensed Maynard had been, in public at least, two decades ago when the Democratic candidate for president Grover Cleveland had been exposed in the public press for having sired an illegitimate child-as if such creatures were not being sired daily, by so-called gentlemen like Maynard Stirling and Grover Cleveland.
"She is correct," f.a.n.n.y Stirling said wearily. "G.o.d has hurt us all cruelly."
"But G.o.d will show us a way out, f.a.n.n.y. Never doubt Him."
Tyler Stirling, too, was trained in the law; lacking his older brother"s reputation, forever in the shadow of the formidable Maynard, yet not without gifts of his own. During the brief hour that Mina Raumlicht slept deeply, Tyler conferred with his sister-in-law in a far corner of the study, deciding what must be done. "The remarkable thing is, the girl makes no accusations. She makes no demands. She seems almost not to know her advantage. She leaves it to us, it appears. Almost, one could take pity on her," Tyler murmured; and f.a.n.n.y said vehemently, "I do take pity on her, and on us. It"s Maynard I cannot forgive." "Possibly, the girl is lying," Tyler ventured uncertainly, "-or there is another man involved. If Maynard were here to-" "But Maynard is not here," f.a.n.n.y said, with surprising feeling. "And if he were, you see, we would not have met Miss Raumlicht; we would know nothing of Miss Raumlicht; it would have been very quietly, very discreetly settled. Ah, I am beginning to see how such things work out, in the world of men!" Tyler and f.a.n.n.y were sipping brandy to steady their nerves; f.a.n.n.y, unaccustomed to strong drink, and at such an hour of the day, refilled her own gla.s.s, and raised it to her trembling lips. The fierce, astringent fumes cleared her head wonderfully. The effect was like a windowpane long dimmed with dirt, wiped clean. Almost, she felt exhilarated: freed! For truly, had she loved Maynard Stirling at all?-except as she"d been, by law, his wife? Dimly she was recalling the hurts and slights of long ago, following the birth of Warren, when f.a.n.n.y was yet a relatively young woman, and her husband had ceased to "approach" her in their bedroom as once he"d been in the habit of doing; not that f.a.n.n.y, being a decent Presbyterian woman, had not been relieved, for of course she had been, of course she"d even thanked G.o.d to be spared; yet at the same time, hadn"t she felt . . . slighted? rather hurt? resentful? Knowing her husband a man of vigorous physical appet.i.tes, she had even tormented herself that Maynard might have looked elsewhere for that balm to which such manuals as The Wife"s Medical Companion referred to discreetly as "marital satisfaction."
She had told no one of this torment, of course. Even among the other Stirling wives, and her own married sisters, there were shamed subjects of which a woman could not speak.
Seeing that f.a.n.n.y was in a state of unpredictable emotions, Tyler told her he preferred to speak with the girl in private when she recovered sufficiently. He would make a financial arrangement with her; he would see that she signed a doc.u.ment legally binding her to silence. "A cash settlement. A fairly generous settlement. And nothing more-nothing for the future. No future contact. That must be agreed upon." f.a.n.n.y said, gazing across the room at the sleeping, now rather angelic-appearing girl, "And yet, if it"s Maynard"s child . . . We had hoped for a daughter, you know." (Though, was this true? f.a.n.n.y had hoped for a daughter, a third child; Maynard had seemed quite content with two strapping healthy sons.) "It"s like a fairy tale, the princess has come home. She is both the missing daughter and will give birth to the daughter. Oh, Tyler, do you see? Is it possible, this is G.o.d"s secret will?"
Tyler had never much respected his sister-in-law"s intellect and general character, though he had always liked the woman well enough, with some of the affectionate condescension he felt for his own mother and sisters; now, he sensed that f.a.n.n.y was on the verge of another fit of female hysteria, and quickly comforted her by grasping her icy hands and a.s.suring her that G.o.d"s will was simply that the Stirlings behave in a decent, Christian manner toward the girl-"Hardly that we martyr ourselves on her behalf, for that would only bring unhappiness and shame upon the entire family, including the Nederlanders."
f.a.n.n.y shuddered. f.a.n.n.y drained the little shot gla.s.s of the last of its brandy. Yes, it was so. Martyrdom was not for her, as it had been for her poor mother. "So long as we are generous, Tyler," she said in a wistful voice.
The remainder of the afternoon and early evening were taken up with Tyler Stirling"s consultation with Miss Raumlicht, and his success, at last, in persuading her to sign a doc.u.ment of his devising in exchange for a "lump sum" of money.
The exact amount, f.a.n.n.y Stirling was never to know.
Tyler had banished her upstairs, to bed with a blinding migraine.
Tyler had set about the task of cleansing, as he irritably thought it, his elder brother"s soiled linen-"For which I will get no credit, since no one except f.a.n.n.y will ever know. And even f.a.n.n.y doesn"t know."
For it wasn"t an easy task to persuade the little seamstress"s a.s.sistant to accept money from him "in the name of Maynard Stirling," and to sign the doc.u.ment promising not to contact any member of the Stirling family ever again; Tyler was astonished at Mina Raumlicht"s stubborn virtue, so unlike any he had ever encountered in his experience as a lawyer. "She is impossible! Ridiculous! Yet so pretty, even in her condition, it"s clear why Maynard was taken with her."
Mina Raumlicht declared she did not want money. She did not wish to soil herself by accepting money. She had not come to Greenley Square to "sell her honor" but simply to see Mr. Stirling, her beloved Maynard, one final time; only out of desperation that he had not contacted her for the past eight days, where never before had he allowed more than three or four days to pa.s.s without sending her a message, or a little gift, or coming to see her during the thirteen months of their acquaintance. "Thirteen months!" Tyler thought with envy. His gaze lingered on the girl"s strained but doll-like face; those bluish-gray, deep-set eyes that were, for all their woe and perplexity, intelligent eyes. Though her slender, distended body was now hidden inside the velveteen cloak, Tyler felt a stab of excitement imagining . . . the young, vibrant flesh his l.u.s.tful brother Maynard had had no need to imagine. "A convenient arrangement on his side," he said, an edge of bitterness to his voice, "-yet not so convenient, I should say, on yours."
But Mina Raumlicht emphatically disagreed. "No, Mrs. Stirling was right, he was good. It is I who am bad in the eyes of G.o.d and of the world, and should not be rewarded for my badness."
Tyler all but ground his teeth, that his elder brother had somehow earned this beautiful young girl"s unquestioned devotion. He had married reasonably well, in the world"s eyes; yet he was capable of forgetting his wife when he was not in her company, and could not claim that he had ever felt pa.s.sion for her, even when they were newlyweds. Tyler told the girl that he understood her feelings, and respected them. But in the present circ.u.mstances, she was obliged to think of the future; surely, his brother would have wished it this way. (Tyler wondered if, hidden amid the intricate codicils of Maynard"s will, a doc.u.ment of numerous pages, there might not be a generous sum set aside for Miss Mina Raumlicht, by way of a third party; but there was no way of his determining this, without arousing suspicion, since he was not Maynard"s executor. In any case, the will would require months of probate before it was settled.) "Wished me to sell my honor?-that I can"t believe," the girl said sadly.
Tyler protested, choosing his words with care: "Miss Raumlicht, you must think of it as making provisions for the future, a.s.suring the well-being of your child soon to be born."
Your child soon to be born. Again, gazing at the girl, Tyler felt a powerful stab of excitement; almost, a swooning sensation in his bowels; for if he wished, he might place his hand against the girl"s pregnant belly, and feel her inner, secret heat . . . ."But no, that"s absurd," he thought, reproving himself. "I am not my brother, I am a man of integrity."
He summoned a servant to bring tea for Miss Raumlicht and himself; the sharp, tart English stimulant refreshed them both.
By this time, late in the afternoon, Tyler had removed his coat and was, in his shirtsleeves, pleasantly warm, if agitated. At 4:40 P.M. Tyler at last succeeded in getting the girl to take up a pen, to sign the brief doc.u.ment he"d devised; she brooded, and frowned, and seemed about to sign, but did not; at 4:48 P.M. she pushed the pen from her like a stubborn child confronted with a plate of repulsive food. There followed then another patient, kindly appeal on Tyler"s part. A moment when by accident his hand brushed against Mina Raumlicht"s shoulder; another moment, when in an unthinking avuncular gesture, he brushed a wisp of hair from the girl"s warm forehead.
How quaint, Mina Raumlicht"s crownlike plaited hair, a fair, silvery brown of the hue of late autumn; how pert her brave upper lip, though beaded with perspiration. How rare a sight, Tyler thought, marveling, to see a female perspire; he was sure he"d never seen any female of his acquaintance perspire; but, perhaps, he"d never noticed.
By 5:12 P.M. Mina Raumlicht again took up Tyler"s pen, and reread the doc.u.ment with painstaking care, dipped the quill point into ink, and seemed about to sign; then, in a gesture of anguished conscience, winced, and shook her head, murmuring, "Oh! I cannot. This is wrong."
Now Tyler did grind his teeth; deciding, impulsively, that he would double the sum of money he was offering her. He took the doc.u.ment from her, crossed out the former sum and hastily wrote in the new, seeing with satisfaction the girl"s widened eyes. "Miss Raumlicht, for the good of us all, you must."
Yet at 5:35 P.M., Mina Raumlicht again laid down the pen and, hiding her face in her hands, wept; saying, in a near-inaudible voice, "-but in accepting so much money, I am compounding my wickedness . . . am I not?"
"a.s.suredly, Miss Raumlicht, you are not." Tyler"s face flushed with excitement; an artery beat hard in his throat, on the verge of triumph. "I am the man to tell you that. You must listen, no longer to Maynard, for he cannot help you in the slightest, but to me."
Still, it would not be until 6:13 P.M. that the little seamstress"s a.s.sistant from Innisfail again took up the pen, and bravely signed her name, to Tyler"s surpa.s.sing joy.
Mina Raumlicht 13 May 1909
Though Tyler was elated, and fairly bursting with enthusiasm at the conclusion of this long session, yet how drawn and defeated Mina Raumlicht appeared. As if we have been engaged in a physical, and not merely a mental, struggle. And I have won.
Still, Mina Raumlicht managed to thank her benefactor, in a courteous voice, and to accept from Tyler"s hand a considerable quant.i.ty of cash ($8,000 in varying, mainly large denominations, taken from the Stirlings" safe, for the family did not trust banks after the local panic following the sinking of the Maine in January 1898), which she carried away in a handsome kidskin traveling bag belonging to f.a.n.n.y Stirling (which was happily donated by f.a.n.n.y, whose relief at the outcome of the consultation with Mina Raumlicht may have exceeded Tyler"s). "Thank you, Mrs. Stirling," Miss Raumlicht said, making a charming if awkward little curtsy, in the foyer of the town house, "-and thank you, Mr. Stirling. I will always remember you with the high regard with which I will always remember-him. "As above, so below"-it is said-which gives me courage, for what we must endure on Earth is ordained for us in the heavens, and, in the heavens if not on Earth, we who dwell in darkness shall be justified."
A remarkable little speech to issue from the lips of a seventeen-year-old seamstress"s a.s.sistant, especially one who staggered beneath the weight of an eight-month pregnancy! Rendered quite speechless themselves, Tyler Stirling and his sister-in-law f.a.n.n.y exchanged a perplexed glance.
By this time, however, the hackney cab had arrived which would deliver Miss Raumlicht, prepaid, to the Contracoeur train station. Tyler lost no time in escorting the girl out to the curb, and out of the lives of the Stirlings, forever.
And so G.o.d spared us f.a.n.n.y would exult in secret from the horror of public scandal beside which the very fires of h.e.l.l seem benign!
Who is she? Where has she come from, and where is she bound?
Unknown to his mother or his uncle, Warren Stirling slipped from the house at Greenley Square to follow the cab, on foot, for many blocks, keeping a vigorous pace until, at Highland Boulevard, he saw to his surprise that the cab stopped; the mysterious girl in the dark traveling cloak, with whom his uncle had been shut up for most of the day, in what must have been a secret conference, climbed gracefully down, and sent the cab away. How lovely she looked, the velveteen hood now removed from her head, her silvery-brown plaited crown shining! Carrying what appeared to be Mrs. Stirling"s kidskin bag, the girl made her way, unescorted, yet with no suggestion of hesitation or shyness now, briskly along the crowded sidewalk, past the somber portico of the Presbyterian church, where generations of Stirlings had worshipped; past the handsome Neo-Grecian facade of the Contracoeur Hotel; and finally, again to Warren"s surprise, into the hurly-burly of lower Commerce Street. There, suddenly, she was joined, or approached, by an unexpected individual, indeed: a tall, lean, neatly dressed Negro gentleman of middle age, it appeared, judging from his powder-gray hair and goatee, and the stoop of his shoulders; he wore rimless gla.s.ses, and a black bowler hat, and walked, stiffly, with a cane. How very different this well-bred Negro was, from the common Negro laborers and servants one saw constantly; he must have been, Warren thought, a minister. Yet how strange it was: the girl in the traveling cloak and the Negro appeared to be walking at precisely the same pace, without glancing at each other; the Negro followed the girl at a discreet distance of about five feet as they headed swiftly on Commerce-so swiftly that Warren, a football player, long-legged and in excellent condition, had difficulty keeping them in sight.
Earlier that day, Warren had been reading in the Contracoeur Post about the "Black Phantom" who"d committed a sensational robbery in Chautauqua Falls a few days previous, and had disappeared with an undisclosed amount of cash (rumored to be several hundred thousand dollars); he"d studied a crude pen-and-ink drawing of the robber in the paper, a young simian-faced Negro with a moustache, in a black domino mask, his long-barreled pistol raised, for effect, beside his arrogant countenance. $12,000 REWARD! WANTED "BLACK PHANTOM"! BOLD NEGRO ROBS CHAUTAUQUA FALLS LADIES & GENTLEMEN AT GUNPOINT! Seeing now this older Negro in the apparent company of the girl in the traveling cloak, Warren naturally thought of the "Black Phantom"-but of course there could be no connection, for this Negro was a well-bred individual in his early fifties, and the "Black Phantom" was a mere youth in his twenties.
Yet were the two, the girl and the Negro, really together?-Warren couldn"t decide. Surely, no one else, glancing in their direction, would have thought so. Warren was fascinated; aroused, as invariably we are in the presence of mystery; staring so avidly, he took no notice of colliding with other pedestrians, and at Grant Street, by the train station, he was almost killed stepping into the path of a clanging streetcar.
To his surprise, and dismay, Warren lost the two in the milling crowd at the train station, and had to give up his pursuit. He"d had a glimpse, and more, of her haunting face which he would cherish for decades; which he would seek, in his romantic relations with young women, always in vain; but which would never fail to stir a sense of exhilaration and hope in his heart.
""The La.s.s of Aviemore""-his numbed lips moved in reverence. How much more beautiful the girl was, to Warren"s way of thinking, than any mere painted beauty hanging framed in gilt in his grandfather Stirling"s house these many years.
"A BIRD IN A GILDED CAGE"
What is the source of this daring, this giddy springtime bravado, and Eloise Peck nee Ingram the granddaughter of the renowned Episcopal bishop?-French champagne at midnight on the terrace of the Saint-Leon Hotel, in Atlantic City, New Jersey; and here in the suite, in the sumptuous bedroom, more champagne at noon; and Russian caviar lavishly spread on toast (though he, with an overgrown boy"s appet.i.te, prefers marmalade or peanut b.u.t.ter); pheasant-brandy pte, rum-b.u.t.ter-b.a.l.l.s, croissants greedily devoured in bed . . .
Christopher! . . . are you asleep?
. . . No ma"am.
Did I wake you?
Oh no ma"am.
I did, didn"t I? . . . I"m so sorry.
Oh no ma"am, I was awake . . . .I was waking.
But, dear Christopher, why do you say "ma"am"? . . . Haven"t I begged you to call me "Eloise"? . . .
. . . Eloise.
Don"t you love me, Christopher?
Oh yes . . . Eloise.
Then why are you so shy, you silly boy? . . . Why now? . . . after these many days of happiness . . . when you know how I adore you?
. . . I am sorry, Eloise.
. . . now that I am your fiancee, and we have only to wait until the decree, and then, oh sweet Christopher! . . . we will be married.
Yes Eloise . . . ma"am.
Why, is she not young? . . . Eloise Peck nee Ingram so very young? . . . to have been married twenty-three years to an old man who will not die?
Christopher!
Yes ma"am.
. . . We will be wed when I am free, it is not a mere dream? . . . a champagne fancy?
Not at all, ma"am. Which is to say . . . yes.